A better vote allocation

The only thing I like about our first past the post system is that it is local by nature. We all vote for someone who represents our constituency. I have made the point however on many occasions that when all the votes are counted and MPs elected the majority of the public are let down.

Some examples spring to mind following the 2019 General Election. Over 835,000 people voted for the Green party and only one MP was elected, whereas over 1,242,00 people voted Scottish Nationalists and they got 48 seats. Over 640,000 people voted for the Brexit party and got no seats while the Democratic Unionist Party , with just over 244,000 votes managed to get 8 seats.

We clearly need a better voting system, one which reflects the wishes of the country and allocates seats in parliament more in line with the votes of its electorate. In my opinion, if you get 44% of the vote then you should get 44% of the seats, not 56% as the Conservative Party did.

I am not against any particular party but our FPTP system does not allow the smaller parties and the people who vote for them any say.

Here then is my alternative, which has the best of both FPTP and Proportional Representation. If a party gets more than 0.154% of the vote then they are going to get a seat in Parliament. I am also assuming that the distribution of votes per constituency is more even than is the case currently.

We all vote in our local constituencies. Any candidate that gets more than 50% of their local vote is elected. All other candidates go onto a list of their party in descending order of the percentage of votes cast. The unfilled seats are then allocated an MP starting with the one with the highest percentage of votes cast for them. The party with the highest overall share of the votes gets the first seat. Remember that this is someone who stood in that constituency. The party with the next highest overall share of the vote is next and so on. This continues through all parties in descending order of votes until all seats are allocated. No party gets more seats than its share of the popular vote. All numbers are rounded down.

OK, it is a little more complicated and will take a day or so to announce all the winners but it is fairer and will ensure that the country is not governed by a minority party.